The latest on smartphones (and other gadgets)

In my previous post I said that the Nokia C7 is a beaut. Well, I received my N8 yesterday, and I have to tell you that the N8 is way better looking. Mine is dark grey, which looks very stylish. The phone is thin and light and easy to hold, all metallic with a beautiful screen. No battery cover a-la iPhone which adds to the sleekness and sense of solidness, and two cool covered slots in the side for the memory card and sim card. No pin needed. With this phone Nokia has once again shown that they know how to build stylish quality devices.

The one design aspect that jars a bit is the protruding camera lens on the back of the phone. It is not really noticeable when holding the phone, but put it down and you immediately see that it lies at an angle. Price you pay for that 12 megapixels I guess. The camera does take great looking pictures – best I have seen on a mobile phone. And the camera’s operation is really easy and feels like a ‘real’ camera if you know what I mean. Half press the dedicated shutter button and the image gets locked in focus – good stuff.

Have I mentioned that the screen looks great. Nokia has somehow made the black seem very black and the colours very colourful. And the response when you press on the screen is also good – very springy if that makes sense with good visual and tactile feedback. I know the N8 doesn’t have the fastest processor on the block, but it responds very snappily. A little bit of lag when loading apps, but on the whole it gives the impression of being fast. And it has a dedicated graphics processor should be fast when playing games as well.

So, a beautiful, well-made handset. In my next post I will get into the N8′s software….